From Frredom and the Sharp Edge, here are some of Sean's ideas for dealing with a Parent or Parent's who have children they can not afford to feed, house, care for well, raise well, etc. Reasons for this inability may include that they themselves are self centered, immature, lack self discipline, poorly educated, indifferent, addicted, want kid(s), etc.
Here are some amusing links:
Blaming the Victim
Baby Mama Signs
The Rubber Came Off
Beyond Baby Mamas
DK Single Mothers: Poverty
Bad Mothers
Only 18 states require that public schools inform students about contraception as part of their sex education guidelines. Only 13 states require that sex education content provided to students be "medically accurate". Guttmacher Institute State Policies Brief
There's no quick solution, but we can do better than we are today. Elements of such a plan would include:Now I don't disagree that these are important, however I think these will be about as effective as peeing on a forest fire. And where is that deep desire to punish those who subject others to abuse, neglect, etc that we saw when the 6 month sentence was announced?
- making sure that all public schools in the country offer comprehensive sex education and ensuring that the ACA's contraceptive mandate is as universal it can be under the law.
- We need to ensure that safety net programs provide the sort of assistance required to actually help struggling parents out of poverty, by ensuring that they get the sort of support (like child care and real job training/educational support) in order to improve their lives.
Here are some amusing links:
Blaming the Victim
Baby Mama Signs
The Rubber Came Off
Beyond Baby Mamas
DK Single Mothers: Poverty
Bad Mothers
16 comments:
"And where is that deep desire to punish those who subject others to abuse, neglect, etc that we saw when the 6 month sentence was announced?"
Once again, you continue to try and equate rape with poor people having children. While having children when you're not financially secure is unwise, it's not criminal (nor should it be). Frankly, it's getting kind of absurd that you keep drawing this sort of parallel.
Turning the state into an instrument that further destroys or weakens families (as your ideas of forced abortions or stripping children away from people who fail to meet your as-of-yet-undefined notions of virtue most certainly do) isn't going to fix the problem.
The question ultimately comes down to whether or not one accepts that we should punish the children put into those situations by using the power of the state to punish their parents. I don't think we should, however distasteful that might be in some circumstances. (Although again it should be pointed out that true number of welfare fraudsters is very small)
We can help by building an economy that provides dignity, empowerment, and a reasonable wage to folks. That means leveling the playing field for labor in the battle versus capital for control of the economy. That means ensuring that everyone has access to health care. That means ensuring that workers can take a sick day (or time off to care for a sick child or parent) or that a woman can have a reasonable maternity leave without fear of losing their job. That means that we find better ways to help low-income folks get education beyond high school (free community college and a move to income-based repayment for student loans come to mind).
Or, we can do the Republican plan and cut taxes for the wealthy, privatize Medicare, and slash social spending. I'm sure that will work just as well.
Based on the typical terrible consequences of poor immature uneducated single mothers having multiple children they can not afford and unprepared to care for well, it certainly should be a crime. These consequences are far more severe long term and debilitating than a drunken blacked out woman being felt up by a drunken stupid man. Those consequences for the infant/ child can and often include hunger, neglect, abuse, under education, special needs, poverty, unstable home, crime, prison, death, exposure to multiple strange men, etc.
"punish the children"... How is aborting a "fetus" before 14 weeks or forcing the baby to be adopted to a loving mature financially stable capable family "punishing the child"? What am I missing here, I thought a fetus was not a child and the infant will have a much better life. The only people punished would be the irresponsible parent(s) who hopefully would be motivated to grow up if they want to actually have a child they can be trusted with.
Now many of these folks don't even make it or barely make it through High School. Until you have a solution for this, the rest is pretty immaterial... No one wants an academically challenged employee with a questionable work ethic. So unless you are okay with ratcheting up the pressure significantly on the schools or parents, it is the child who is further victimized by the incapable parent having/keeping the child.
If the "solution" to the problem involves fundamentally reordering our government into an authoritarian state, then maybe we're better off just dealing with the problem.
Sending irresponsible people checks so they can continue being irresponsible and propagating generational poverty is NOT dealing with the problem... It is dooming millions of children to live in questionable households /with very poorly qualified Parents.
Single Family Households and Poverty
Now I agree that my simple logical solution will never be adopted, since the Conservatives fear governmental over reach, demand that unqualified parents be allowed to raise their children as they wish, fight sex education and fight government funded birth control.
And the Liberals seem to be fine with irresponsible people creating more babies to be trapped in the cycle & having society bear the associated costs, and seem to be against holding accountable the status quo education system that continues to fail the children who need it most.
So yes the poor unlucky kids will continue to be born, raised poorly, taught poorly, imprisoned, killed, etc.
The Conservatives will blame it on irresponsible Parents/Schools.
The Liberals will blame it on a shortage of welfare / school funding and an excess of racism.
Neither of these arguments will help or save the unluckiest kids, but maybe it will make the adults on both sides feel better so they can sleep at night.
Some food for thought.
Success Begins at Home
The Positive Relationship
Are two-parent married households better for children than other alternatives? Sure. But, I think most Americans have little appetite for the sort of broad intervention into the life of our families that you propose.
How can you on one hand have the government mandating abortion in some cases, while jailing women who get them selectively? What about families that are stable when the child is born, then become unstable later? Are they subject to the Appelen Virtue Test? What happens to those kids?
As I said... My proposal is DOA. It is the kids and tax payers who will continue to suffer.
Freedom is often good, however as we have seen lately, it can also harm a lot of people.
"As I said... My proposal is DOA."
But hey, keep shooting your arrows at people who are trying to come up with a real world solution...
Sean,
Your "real world" proposed solution is just as DOA as my proposed solution that would work...
"- Build an economy that provides dignity, empowerment, and a reasonable wage to folks. That means leveling the playing field for labor in the battle versus capital for control of the economy.
- That means ensuring that everyone has access to health care.
-That means ensuring that workers can take a sick day (or time off to care for a sick child or parent) or that a woman can have a reasonable maternity leave without fear of losing their job.
-That means that we find better ways to help low-income folks get education beyond high school (free community college and a move to income-based repayment for student loans come to mind)." Sean
None of the above solve the poor single Parent households having too many kids, and the closely related kids following their example problems. Do you have anything more?
"Your "real world" proposed solution is just as DOA as my proposed solution that would work."
Pfft. 29 states have a minimum wage higher than the federal standard. The ACA has moved us as close as we've ever been to universal coverage. Paid sick, parental, and maternity leave is starting to happen in cities and states across the country.
Does it directly prevent poor households from having kids like your totalitarian nightmare? No. But it does figure to raise living standards and give more poor people a fighting chance to move ahead in this economy.
Just like a dog chasing it's tail.
Please remember that as you force the American business costs higher through arbitrary legislation. The costs for all consumers increase, including the poor. Worse yet, the consumers will likely shift to buying more product from overseas or via self service kiosks/online.
Worse yet is that the true poor unlucky kids have had medicare, welfare, earned income tax credits, child tax credits, etc for decades and the single parent families just keep coming. And these were paid for by the income taxes of the wealthy... Not by higher costs charged to the poor and elderly.
I hope you are correct, but I see little cause and effect logic to support your view.
"Please remember that as you force the American business costs higher through arbitrary legislation."
There's nothing arbitrary about it. "Arbitrary" is doing things like establishing some sort of nebulous criteria that would trigger you being dragged off to get a mandatory abortion.
"Worse yet, the consumers will likely shift to buying more product from overseas or via self service kiosks/online."
This is going to happen anyway. You really think that holding the minimum wage steady is going to cause companies to abandon automation? (You think that mandating abortions for poor people is going to change that trend?)
"And these were paid for by the income taxes of the wealthy"
Sure (and everyone else too, by the way!). Stockholders of many retail companies, for instance, benefit significantly from the fact that the government picks up the slack for their failure to pay a living wage to many of its front line employees. I'm sure the Hobby Lobby crew will love having their tax dollars go to paying for your clearly superior and more reasoned forced abortion scheme, though.
I think my criteria is pretty simple, non-arbitrary and logical. If one has a kid(s) and is receiving government assistance, it is pretty obvious that they can not afford to raise another child adequately. Therefore <14 wk abortion or adoption seem best for all.
Automation is justified based on pay back or Rate of Return on the investment. The difference between $9/hr & $14/hr costs the company an additional $11,000 + benefits per year to cost justify the automation. On the upside, engineers love it when Liberals press emission controls, higher minimum wages, safety devices, etc. We call it job security.
Also, the reality is that neither the consumers nor the customers receive any benefit from the government, only the employees do.
It is like we are rewarding them for squandering the free education that we gave them at a significant cost to the tax payers.
"Oh... You barely got that HS degree or you dropped out... Don't worry... We will charge society even more to make sure you are paid well to sit at that music or vaping store..."
"Also, the reality is that neither the consumers nor the customers receive any benefit from the government, only the employees do."
If we ended welfare today, would the social costs disappear or would they just be shifted?
Who gets to decide how much an employee should earn, or what they should be willing to accept as wages? Shouldn't that be for the employer and employee and no one else?
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